I'm Still With You
by wonderingwoman
Summary: When TF finally arrives at Alexandria why would Rick get sidetracked by Jessie when he was so clearly in love with Michonne? I am obsessed with Rick's journey to crazytown! I had to reconcile for myself how he allowed this to happen? He was clearly suffering from PTSD but I needed more! So I wrote it. If you spent way too much time thinking about this, you might like my story.
1. Chapter 1

"Just because we're good people doesn't mean we won't kill you."

In fact Rick was thinking about killing Aaron before anyone came back and just being done with it. He wanted to save them from having to make the choice about whether to believe him or not. He wanted to save himself from having to make the wrong decision  
again.

He wasn't blind. He could tell that everyone wanted to take the chance. He could tell that everyone wanted to believe Aaron. He knew they wanted Aaron's story to be true.

Rick didn't think they could risk it.

They were weak, their morale was low; they were just barely surviving. Since Terminus, well since the prison actually, they hadn't stopped, they had just suffered loss after loss. And they were only more vulnerable now, hungry and tired. What if this  
community was worse than Terminus? What if this time they didn't make it out? He wanted to believe in a community too, strong walls where his family could be safe, but it seemed unlikely. He couldn't imagine that anyone safe behind walls would be  
out looking for people. Especially people that looked like they must look. Dirty, rough, beaten down, like vigilantes or mercenaries returning home from a losing battle.

Sure Aaron seemed alright. He was charming, like the Governor, and concerned about them, like Gareth. Aaron was clean and serious like the woman from Grady Memorial was right before she killed Beth. He was easy-going, placating, and friendly like Dave  
from the bar back by the farm, the first person Rick had killed after the world had ended. That was the day Rick realized that he would do whatever it took to keep his family safe. The day he realized they would never get back to any semblance of  
the old world.

It seemed like killing Aaron was the safest bet.

That way no one would be able to ask him to put their lives in danger. Michonne wouldn't be able to convince him to give Aaron a chance. He wondered if she knew that he wanted to believe in Aaron's community too. She must know that he wanted a safe place  
for them to live too, but he just couldn't allow himself to make the wrong choice. Again. He had given people the benefit of the doubt before. Carl had been right after the Governor's first attack when he had called him out for it. "You didn't kill  
Andrew and he came back and killed mom. You were in a room with the Governor and you let him go and then he came back and killed Merle." And then Hershel. He couldn't afford to take chances anymore.

Shane wouldn't have given Aaron an opportunity to get all of them behind those tall steel walls. Shane would just kill Aaron and the discussion would be over. Shane knew before anyone the kind of world they were living in now. Rick had thought he would  
be able to keep his humanity and keep his family safe but Shane knew better. And he had killed Shane. But ever since the fall of the prison and Terminus Rick had been thinking more and more about what Shane would do. Shane would have gone in quiet  
to Grady. Got in, got Beth, and taken care of anyone in their way. Rick had let Tyrese convince him that diplomacy was the better path, but Tyrese was was gone now and so was Beth. He should have listened to Shane instead of Tyrese and maybe they  
would both still be alive. Or, more likely, Shane wouldn't have even gone in after Beth thinking that one more lost girl wasn't worth the risk. Or Shane would have killed the Governor long ago and they would all still be happily living in the prison,  
and then, instead of Rick waiting to see if Michonne was right and there was a community or if they had been taken and she was gone, he could be working in thegarden right now. He would be safe behind the prison fences waiting for her to whistle  
and ride up on her horse and he could smile at her and try not to let her see how happy he was whenever she came home.

Shane was right.

Rick was going to kill Aaron before anyone got back. Michonne would be upset with him but at least she would be alive, if she wasn't already dead. She would understand; she knew how he was scared to take the chance. She saw how he wrestled with the demons  
of his past decisions. Ever since the train tracks, before they were reunited with Daryl they had slept head to head with Carl, taking turns sitting up and keeping watch. When she was on watch and he would be fitfully sleeping, lost in dreams that  
weren't just nightmares but memories, she would reach over and brush his hair off of his face, her smooth, cool hands settling him so he could rest. Sometimes when it was really bad, when he drifted, neither awake nor asleep, tormented, she would  
reach over and rest her hand on his back and soothe him like he imagined she had done for Andre when he couldn't sleep.

Andre, the name she had never mentioned to him in her waking hours but whose name she murmured when she was the one who slept restlessly and he was the one who calmed her with his gentle touch.

When the daylight came, they never spoke of it, they didn't need to. What good would it do to bring their torment out into the daylight?

After they had been reunited with everyone they continued to sleep together as a family, Carl and Judith between them safe and warm. Sometimes when neither of them were on watch he would reach his arm out over his children, and she would reach out to  
hold his hand, and in the dark, for a few moments he could rest peacefully knowing that his children were safe in his arms and he was holding the hand of the woman he loved.

None of that mattered though in the waking hours.

All that mattered now was their survival, finding food to eat, protecting the family, and the long relentless journey they were on. They were on this path to Washington D.C. because of Michonne. He had wanted to give her something to hold on to, something  
to live for, something to show her how he felt about her and this was all he had to give. Maybe he should trust her intuition. Maybe she was right and there was a community. Since they had made the decision to continue on to Washington, Michonne had  
been taking on more responsibility, quietly sharing his burden of leadership. She had also begun to take a more active role in their decision making process. When it had just been them on the road they had made the decisions together, no one was the  
leader, they were a team. Then, when they joined up with everyone else he just continued running things by her. He had gotten used to her calm decision making and had come to rely on her. And now that they were back with the group maybe she wanted  
to take on more responsibility, especially for this journey to Washington. Besides, it felt right, having her there next to him, discussing the routes and making the plan for the walkers that had been following them for miles. And then, when Sasha  
had gone against their plan, her plan, lashing out in her pain and anger, Michonne had stepped up and set her straight and no one had even questioned her right to assume that role. It just seemed natural for her, for everyone. And now here she was  
setting him straight. In front of everyone she just told him how it was going to be and even he didn't question her right to assume that responsibility. It felt natural to him too. He didn't know how it happened or when but he knew it just felt right.  
And maybe, just maybe, she wasn't wrong. He owed her the chance to find out if this community was for real.

"If the five of them aren't back in an hour I'll put a knife in the base of your skull."


	2. Chapter 2

Rick and Michonne sat in the car listening to the distant sounds of children laughing. The sound was at once both familiar and frightening to him. It seemed so out of place in this world, to be carefree. He wanted to rush in and quiet those children,  
hide them, and protect them. He wondered how any parents still alive could allow their children to be in such danger and he wanted to race in and warn them that the world wasn't safe anymore, he wanted to sit them down and lecture them like he used  
to lecture parents, in his uniform, about the dangers of not using a car seat correctly or second hand smoke. He wondered how the people living behind these walls had survived as long as they had.

At the same time he longed to be like them, to be naive again, and ignorant of the horrors that his children and family had been exposed to.

Michonne turned to him and smiled. She placed her hand gently over his and his heart lightened just a little. He was grateful to her for taking the decision of Alexandria away from him. He didn't believe that he would ever have been able to take the risk,  
to lead their family into another unknown. As he had stood in the barn, frozen with fear and indecision he knew that there was no way he was going to say _yes_. But at the same time he had also struggled with telling everyone _no_. He  
saw them looking at him with hope and he desperately wanted to say _yes_ but he just couldn't force the words out of his mouth.

He didn't know why Aaron would try to bring them back to his safe home or what his end game could possibly be but he knew it couldn't be for anything good.

Aaron and his community were definitely too good to be true.

And even if he was for real, what on earth would they want with him and his family?

Rick just didn't get it.

"Wait, why wouldn't we go?" Carl had asked.

 _Because I can't lose you,_ Rick thought. _Because I can't trust anyone anymore. I can't trust anyone ever again after what we've seen, what we've been through. No potential benefit is worth the risk of losing you._ What if it had been Carl  
on the killing floor at Terminus and Rick couldn't save him?

Rick's heart wept for Carl daily, he thought about him and Judith incessantly while they had trekked the endless miles from Georgia. Sometimes he would look at Carl sleeping and see him as a little boy, before the world the had ended, before things had  
gotten bad with Lori. He would remember how they would just sit and watch him while he slept, talking about their hopes and dreams for Carl's future. He wanted Lori to rest easy, knowing that Carl was safe, that Judith was safe, and that Lori's sacrifice  
hadn't been for nothing. Rick desperately wanted Aaron to be for real but he just couldn't stop listening to Shane's voice in his head. He knew that Shane would want him to kill Aaron and it was all he could do to not just give in to him and end the  
desperate longing he saw in everyone's eyes. Didn't they remember Terminus? He knew Daryl and Glenn did, he could see that they were wary too. The others hadn't kneeled on the killing floor, they had only heard about it but they would never be able  
to understand. They were lucky. But at the same time he could see a tiny glint of hope in Glenn's eyes, hope for a life and a chance for Maggie to move past her grief. Daryl was the only one who looked like he'd be okay with Rick shooting Aaron in  
the head and ending this farce.

"If he were lying, or if he wanted to hurt us," he heard Michonne interrupt his thoughts.

"But he isn't and he doesn't."

"We need this."

"So we're going. All of us," she finished, looking at him, telling him to let go and let her handle this. She was communicating with him in a separate conversation then she was having with the rest of the group in the way like only she could do.

 _I've got this, she said. Just let me,she said. This time it won't be on you._

"Someone say something if they feel differently," she added, sharing the burden with everyone who was staring at their silent conversation.

He wanted to disagree with her.

He wanted to shout at her.

He wanted to force her to back down. But he couldn't.

He couldn't force the words out his mouth. Because he wanted this to be real too.

He needed this to real.

For Carl. For Judith. For the memory of Lori.

And maybe, just maybe, to get Shane the fuck out of his head.

So instead of shouting _no._

Instead of imposing his will upon her and the group.

Instead of allowing his leadership to be threatened by her.

Instead of killing Aaron.

And instead of jeopardizing this chance with his crippling fear...

He was going to accept this this beautiful gift she was offering to him.

He was going to allow her to share his burden.

He was going to let her carry it. Just for a moment.

"I don't know man, this barn smells like horseshit," Rick heard Daryl say from across the room. Rick gave a short laugh. Daryl, the one guy he thought he could count on to choose caution. He knew that Daryl would have his back whatever he decided but  
Rick was a little surprised to realize that Daryl was falling in with Michonne so quickly. Although he didn't know why he was so surprised, he knew Daryl and Michonne had each others backs too. And there was definitely no way he could go up against  
the two of them if they were united.

"Yeah. We're going."

He had agreed. He was taking the first step. But even though he had deferred to them, he wasn't planning on going in blind. He was going to go in expecting another Terminus. It still sounded too good to be true to him. But he would try. For Michonne.

Rick smiled at Michonne and accepted the comfort of her hand upon his. A simple gentle, gesture that let him know that as long as they were together it might just be okay.

"Are you ready?" she asked.

 **A/N** Hello everyone! I'm new to writing FF, or anything really, but I always love reading your stories and I'm glad there's a few of you out there who like reading mine! Thanks for reading my story and thanks especially to those who took  
the time to leave a review! I'm so happy to be a part of this amazing fandom!


	3. Chapter 3

Rick paced nervously around the room. He was anxious and couldn't relax. He'd go to look out the window, then to the kitchen, and then restlessly and inevitably, end up in the hallway again where he could hear the shower. Everyone else was sitting around  
the living room, the spacious, clean living room that they had rearranged in order to all sleep on the floor. He didn't want them spread out where he couldn't just hear them while they slept. He was pretty sure that everyone wanted to stay together  
anyway. No one was ready to sleep alone, for the first time. They were too used to each other now, they relied on each others familiar sounds to sooth them and keep out the demons that solitude awoke.

Rick had never believed in any type of that extra-sensory perception stuff before the end of the world but he was having a hard time explaining to himself how he could just tell where everyone was and what they were doing at any given moment. Even if  
they were out of his sight or out of his hearing, he felt a connection, an invisible tether almost, that connected him to everyone in his group. When they had been on the road he could close his eyes and just picture all of his people. If someone  
was missing, for whatever reason, off to find a spot to go to the bathroom or off hunting, or just off looking for a few minutes of quiet he always knew where they were and exactly how long they had been gone. Each person had a different tolerance  
for solitude, a different amount of time they could be gone before he would start worrying.

Well he was worried every time someone was out of his line of sight, but he would try to keep it under wraps because he knew it was the only way he could hold onto his tenuous sanity, by not giving into every desperate thought.

Daryl needed the most solitude, he was frequently away from the group for hours at a time. That was Daryl though, Rick knew he needed more time alone than the rest of them but Rick could always feel his presence. He was so in touch with his friend that  
he honestly could just feel where he was at any given time. Usually he was ahead of them a little, scouting the route or off a little to the west tracking something he might be able to provide for dinner. Rick couldn't explain it, maybe it was unexplainable,  
like the world was now, but he could just close his eyes and feel Daryl. The connection was stronger with certain people.

Some of them didn't like to be alone at all. Eugene was scared and liked the comfort the group brought him. Noah just liked to be close to everyone, to feel like he wasn't by himself and he still had some semblance of a family. Some of the group, those  
who were just barely existing, struggling to survive the losses they'd had or the guilt they felt for being alive, those people walked on the edge of the group away from the center but not too far away. Rick just knew their sounds and their movements.  
He could close his eyes and hear Sasha relentlessly taking apart and reassembling her weapon, Michonne sharpening her blade, and Daryl tightening and adjusting his bow strings.

Today had been especially hard for Rick, harder even than being out on the road. All day everyone was all spread out around their new community. They were separated to be interviewed, given jobs, and opportunities to clean up and get new clothes. At first  
Rick made himself crazy trying to keep track of everyone as he paced about feeling more like a caged wild animal than someone who had finally found a safe place for his children to sleep. Although he still wasn't convinced it was a safe place. But  
he had tried, he had chosen a house for them to sleep in, he had watched his son marvel at the running water in the sinks, and he had even taken a shower and shaved.

A hot shower. A hot shower, in a clean bathroom, with shampoo and soap.

He couldn't get over the way everything could feel both familiar and foreign at the same time. The muscle memory was still there. He walked into a room and automatically turned on the light switch, just like he had never stopped flicking them off and  
on. Just like he hadn't spent a lifetime without them. While he had been shaving, after his hot shower, he had heard a knock on his door and just like he had answered a door yesterday, he walked out and opened it, without a weapon of any kind in his  
hands or behind his back. He had just walked out of the bathroom and opened the door and he had seen a woman standing there, a woman without any fear in her eyes. This seemed more unbelievable to him than the reality that was on the other side of  
their fences.

Her name was Jessie. She smiled at him and gave him a basket of things and then she offered to give him a haircut. He was so surprised by this he heard himself say okay and let her in.

"I can take care of myself," she had said.

She didn't have a clue. She thought she could take care of herself, alone with him. He would have laughed at her if he wasn't so surprised. She thought she could protect herself from him, from the world, from the dead. He wanted to shake her, to scare  
her, to drag her out beyond the gates and show her what the world looked like. He also wanted to protect her so that she never had to find out there were men out there like Gareth, or Joe and his claimers. What was the worst thing that had ever happened  
to her, the worst thing that she had ever seen that she thought she could walk into his space and not be afraid for her life. She had walked him into the kitchen and got out a chair for him to sit on and all the while he was looking around for something  
he could use to kill her if he needed to. Because maybe this was the plan all along, to separate him from his group and send someone in to kill him, someone he wouldn't expect. He wasn't going to let his guard down ever. He thought he could take her  
pretty easily if he needed to but what if she had brought others with her, what if she was just the bait. Or, what if she was just pretending and was actually a cold-blooded killer waiting for him to relax so she could stab her hair cutting scissors  
into his neck like he was getting ready to do to her if she breathed the wrong way.

Rick wasn't sure if he was being smart or crazy. He couldn't tell anymore, what was what. He thought it was better to side withcaution. Everyone is a potential enemy.

It was hard for him to stay on guard though. As she settled him in a chair and draped a towel over his shoulders he was again thrown into the surreal world of foreign familiarity and as she combed his hair and spoke aimlessly about her children he drifted  
into a memory and slowly, unconsciously, started to relax.

He closed his eyes and remembered Lori cutting his hair. They were in the kitchen of their first apartment, back when all they had to worry about was that they couldn't afford to take him to get a real haircut before he started at the academy. She had  
never cut hair before but said _how hard could it be_? He loved her, he had trusted her, so he had sat, trying not to squirm, just enjoying the way it felt to have her fingers running through his hair all while hoping she didn't mess it up too  
bad. He felt foolish with Shane watching him and laughing at Lori over his shoulder whenever she slipped and said _whoops_. They were so happy then. All three of them. Lori was pregnant with Carl, he and Shane had were starting at the sheriff's  
academy, and they finally had saved enough to move into their own place. It was a tiny apartment, one bedroom, dark and near the train tracks, but it was their own, and Lori had hung bright curtains that she had made. As Rick looked down at the clean,  
cold tile floor of this new place he remembered sitting in a chair, looking down at the old, worn linoleum thinking about the one day when he would be able to provide a nice house for his family.

After Lori had finished with his hair she gave him a small mirror and he had smiled and kissed her and said it was perfect and that she had done a great job all while trying to not make eye contact with Shane who was trying hard not to laugh at Rick.  
He knew he was going to get an earful as soon as they were alone. _Can you cut Shane's hair too honey?_ He had asked her just to shut Shane up. _Of course_ she said, _I can't have either of my boys getting in trouble their first day_.  
Over Shane's protests she had gently pulled him into the chair and draped a towel over his shoulders while this time Rick had sat back and smiled all nice at Shane. _Oh no Lori, I don't want to put you out_ , Shane had tried to say, but Lori  
was having none of it. She took as much responsibility for him as she did for Rick. Everyone joked she was getting two husbands for the price of one when she and Rick got married. Everyone knew that Shane and Rick came as a pair. They had been inseparable  
since the first day of kindergarten when a bossy second grade girl had been making shy, quiet Rick carry all of her stuff and give her the cookies his grandma had made special for the first day of school.

That hadset the precedent for their entire friendship. Kind Rick getting bullied or taken advantage of and Shane stepping up to tell whoever it was to leave his friend alone and give him back his cookies. By the time they were in high school Rick  
and Shane were always together, the popular center of a large group of friends. Rick had learned to stand up for himself by then and wasn't walked over quite so much anymore, the years of Shane's friendship having rubbed off on him a little. But Shane  
was always the outspoken, funny one that girls flocked to and Rick was always the quiet one, talking Shane out of doing stupid stuff or being to mean to a girl that Rick wished he had the courage to talk to. That all changed when Lori had moved to  
their school junior year. Pretty and immediately popular, for some reason she hadn't fallen for any of Shane's lines. She had gravitated to the shy, quiet friend. The friend who had almost overnight grown into his gangly looks and was more handsome  
than his close friends had noticed, used to as they were to Shane being the good looking one. This time though, for once, it was Rick who got the girl, and when he fell, he fell hard. Lori was Rick's first everything and he was always so proud to  
have her by his side, no longer the third wheel to Shane and whomever he had chosen for the night. Everyone said that they were the perfect couple and that Rick was the perfect boyfriend.

When Rick and Lori were married, living in that awful apartment and then their tiny house, Shane was still always around. He would stop by every morning to pick Rick up for work and Lori would pour him a cup of coffee and ask him if he'd had breakfast.  
He always said he wasn't hungry but every morning she just happened to have made a little more eggs than Rick and Carl could finish. Rick knew she made them for Shane on purpose, that she felt bad for him, not having a wife to make breakfast for him.  
She took her role as wife and mother seriously and she included Shane in their little family.

 _When are you going to settle down Shane, I'm tired of cooking for you,_ she'd say as she swatted his head and poured him another cup of coffee. _You've spoiled me for all other women Lori,_ Shane would joke. _Well whatever you do, don't marry that girl you brought by last weekend, I can't spend the rest of my life having barbeques with her,_ she  
added. Then as she walked out of the room she talked to Carl, who was a baby on her hip. They heard her laughing, _no Carl no, that cannot be the mother of your future best friend, we just can't have that, can we._

Rick had watched Shane watching Lori with Carl and knew that the real reason Shane hadn't settled down was because he was in love with Lori. He hadn't been surprised at all to realize what happened between Shane and Lori after Atlanta was bombed and the  
world, with its bonds of propriety had ended, when sleeping with your husband's best friend wasn't the worst thing in the world anymore. He remembered walking out of the trailer back at the quarry to see them talking and it was like a punch to the  
gut. Lori had tried to play it off, said she had been telling Shane to trust Rick or something but he knew them too well for that. And then later at the farm Shane had tried to say that he had never looked at Lori before but Rick knew that was a lie.

Maybe Shane was lying to himself but he couldn't lie to Rick.

He had seen the way Shane watched Lori, even when he had a date with him, and those girls had certainly noticed, they never came around again after hanging out with the Grimes family. The only one who didn't know was Lori. Rick knew Shane wouldn't have  
ever tried anything while Rick was alive, and if he had in fact died who else would he have wanted to take care of his wife and child but Shane. Still though, it was hard for them to come back from that and when Rick had finally killed Shane and Lori  
had been angry with him for it, well that was just the excuse Rick needed to be mad at Lori for sleeping with Shane. For not waiting for him or rescuing him or believing that he had died when he had never given up, would have never given up looking  
for her and Carl. Even though things had been bad between them before he got shot, even though Shane had stopped dropping by in the morning to pick Rick up because he and Lori were always fighting, even though the last words he had remembered her  
saying were _sometimes I wonder if you even love us_ , he would have searched for them until he died.

And when he found her, a needle in a haystack, against all odds, when his love for them had overcome the end of world, when he finally found her, she was pregnant with Shane's baby.

All of the hopes and dreams that he and Lori had for Carl, to grow up and be best friends with Shane's future baby that was now his sister, were meaningless.

Rick had allowed himself to relax, to drift into the memories that had no place in this new world, lulled by the snipping of the scissors and the calm woman's voice. Her fingers running through his hair had transported him to a long ago time and he wished  
he could stay there and had never become the man that wanted to stab her with hair cutting scissors.

Rick wished that he had never had to become the man that killed someone by biting out their throat or the man who had almost been slaughtered sitting next to the man who had offered up his life in trade for his and his son's life, and the life of the  
woman he now loved. Rick liked the way it had felt, sitting in that chair, forgetting for just a few moments the things he had seen and thethings he had done. He had remembered Lori with love for the first time in a long time. And when he had  
heard Jessie say, _you know it's okay if you're not okay with all of this yet,_ he felt a single tear fall and he allowed himself to not be okay, just for that moment.

That was earlier though, that temporarily calm state was quickly suppressed as he met back up with Daryl and Carol and forgot all about the woman with the kind voice, the one who thought she could be in a room with him and survive him if he had wanted  
to harm her. Now he was back to preparing for some new terror, for something that was going to be worse than he could even imagine. He didn't know when or how but he still wasn't convinced that they weren't going to come for his family. So tonight  
they would share a room, stick together if for no other reason than that Rick would only be able to rest if they were all there together, if he could close his eyes and feel the connection between himself and each of them.

So now here he was, pacing and waiting, standing outside the hallway that led to a bathroom that held the last person he needed to feel complete. He heard the water shut off and waited anxiously for Michonne to finish brushing her teeth and join him,  
and calm him in a different way, with her strong and capable presence that allowed him to share his burden with her and not feel like everyone's safety was resting upon his shoulders. She was the woman he loved now, the woman that loved Carl and Judith,  
the woman who knew everything he had done to survive and keep his family alive, and still she stayed with him.

"How long was I in there for?" he heard her ask.


	4. Chapter 4

Rick stood staring out the window; he was unsuccessfully trying to force himself to relax. He desperately wanted to enjoy the fact that his family was finally all in one place, sleeping peacefully, but he wasn't sure if he was ever going to be okay with the way they were spread out all day. It was the first full day in Alexandria and he was exhausted from trying to keep track of everyone. He had spent too long on an intensified high alert. If someone was missing he was worried about them. Anyone out of his eyesight was potentially in danger. He just could not let go of that feeling, the feeling of having to know where everyone was all of the time.

He knew that he was tired of running, tired of living on the outside, but he also recognized that there was a part of him that felt restless and unsettled inside, like the outside was maybe where he belonged.

Once, back in the old world, when he had shot and killed someone during a domestic dispute that got out of control, he had desperately wanted to get home to Lori and Carl. He had been thinking that he would only, finally be okay when he was home with them and able to feel safe in their presence. That hadn't been the case though. He had walked in the door looking forward to Lori's embrace but had instead been made physically ill by their peaceful and calm demeanors. They were just sitting there, smiling at him, not knowing that he had taken a man's life earlier. They looked at him as though he was the same man that had left that morning when he was in fact an entirely new person, a killer. He couldn't relax, he couldn't sit down, he was nervous and anxious and mad at Lori for asking him over and over what was the matter. He didn't want to tell her what he had done, he wanted to protect her from it but he also wanted to unburden himself to someone. Who else could he do that with but the woman he loved?

After Carl had gone to bed, when he finally told her what had happened, he hadn't been able to stand the look in her eyes. She had tried to be supportive but she kept talking about the family of the man he had just killed and how they must be feeling, those poor children that were going to grow up without a father. As though he hadn't thought of that himself. As though he didn't feel the weight of his actions. He had saved another officer's life that day, not to mention the mother of those poor children, but she didn't understand that. She was crying for him and she was crying because of him. It was as though she was realizing for the first time that his job might one day come to this.

Rick had locked himself in the bathroom to get away from the look in her eyes, and then he had thrown up. He threw up everything he had in his gut and then kept on throwing up even after he had nothing left but dry, wracking, heaving sobs. He never talked to her about work after that night and now, with the benefit of hindsight, he wondered if it was the beginning of the end for them. She always complained that he didn't talk to her enough but she never did have the ability to understand the pain he felt because of the choices he had to make. Maybe that was partly his fault, he just couldn't talk about things, because he couldn't explain them right. He was scared to tell her how he felt because he didn't want to see that look in her eyes. He never wanted to feel the way he had felt that night again.

He never wanted to feel the way he did after he had shared his burden and laid his soul, raw and broken in her hands, searching for redemption, only to end up laying on the bathroom floor alone after wearing himself out, physically and mentally, sick in his body, his heart, and his soul.

He was lucky that King County was pretty tame compared to some jurisdictions. He hadn't had to go through it again. Maybe he would have after getting shot himself, but the world had ended. There were plenty of situations though where he was forced to make tough calls that always ended up making him physically ill. When he would start to feel that sick feeling in his gut he would remember the way he felt that night, anxious, sick, angry at himself and the world and he would just try and shut that shit down as fast as he could.

He had been required to go in for therapy, a session where an older woman wearing long dangling earrings with her hair piled up on her head had asked him about his feelings. He had told her about how he had been sick and she had explained it to him in cold clinical terms. She told him that it was the adrenaline that had made him sick and about his _fight or flight_ instincts that had saved him and the other officer that day, they allowed him to stay steady in the moment and handle things as they came, but afterwards, after an _incident_ his body was left to process what had happened, and what he had done. When the adrenaline was gone, no longer there to numb his thoughts and feelings, he was left with just himself and his decisions. He felt that way that way now, anxious, angry, and sick, unable to enjoy the quiet night.

He felt as though he wanted to wake everyone up and hide them in the closets or sneak them out and over the fences where he could keep them all in a barn and watch over them. He wanted to be able to close his eyes and just know where they were. He needed to be able to feel their presence to push away that sick feeling.

He looked out the window at the quiet, clean streets and saw his reflection. He was could tell he was being paranoid and maybe a little crazy. There they all were, sleeping on the living room floor of a house, protected by steel walls. Plus, he hadn't gotten a dangerous, sociopathic vibe off of anyone today. In fact he was the only one who had acted like a lunatic when he ran down the streets after Carl and Judith, totally panic stricken, fear coursing through his veins, so desperate that he had run into that woman's sculpture because he had literally been blind with fear. Again, the woman had soothed him just with her calm voice, her voice that wasn't beaten down with regret and guilt like Sasha's was. In fact her voice had a little smile to it that reminded him of voices he remembered from a long time ago, voices like the girls he knew in high school or women at the supermarket who asked about Carl and told him to have a nice day. Her voice hadn't sounded like Carol's voice. It hadn't become hard and didn't have any suspicion darkening it. Her voice didn't need him to save her life or make decisions that might get her killed. She had pointed him in the direction of Carl and Judith and then made him feel better despite his fear.

The woman made him feel like his old self for a minute, like the memory he had of being a normal man. She made him feel like the man who had left one morning to go to work, who had kissed his wife and son good-bye with a happy unburdened heart, the man who wasn't yet a killer. He wanted to be that man again.

As Rick stood, staring out the window he felt his heart racing and his palms were cold and sweaty at the same time. They had spent their first full day in Alexandria and while most of the group were accepting the place at face value Rick still felt out of place. He felt awkward and uncomfortable in his own skin, like he wanted to crawl out of it.

On the surface he was walking around talking to people, taking care of business, clean shaven, with his newly styled hair and clean clothes. Upstanding. Then, on the inside, he was still that man he had seen staring out of the mirror after his first shower, the unrecognizable face, bearded, guarded, concerned, and suspicious. Damaged.

He hadn't recognized himself in the mirror that day, he had never seen his face like that before. But while his face had been different, today he felt as though that man was the man he had become.

He thought that while everyone else saw the clean-shaven, clean cut man, if he was to look in the mirror he would see himself for who he really was: the wild man, the man not fit for the clean, civilized life inside these walls.

Once, back in the old world, when Lori had taken a class at the community college she told him about a book she was reading, when they still did things like talk about books. The story was about a man who kept a painting in his attic that showed the man's true self and while the man went about his daily life, everyone thought he was kind and generous, angelic, but the man was actually evil and was doing horrible things that no one knew about. Only the picture hidden in the attic showed the man, scarred and hardened. Rick wondered if he was that man now and he wondered how people would look at him if his true self was visible. He imagined a picture somewhere of himself, maybe at the farm or the prison, buried in the rubble or blowing off in the wind, tattered or partially burned, a picture that showed his face the way he really was on the inside. A monster.

Rick stood there at the window feeling the old sickness coming on. He wondered why he hadn't ever felt this way while on the run or at the prison. Did it mean that somewhere inside of himself he knew he was safe now and able to _process his emotions_? He didn't want to relax his guard or become complacent. He wanted keep his edge and not become weak. Whatever was happening to him, he didn't like the way he felt and he knew it was only going to get worse. He thought back to the old techniques that the therapist had suggested: deep breaths, counting backwards from 100, imagining himself in a place where he had been happy once. What bullshit.

Despite his anger and frustration, despite his total disbelief in a _happy place_ , when he closed his eyes he heard laughter in his head, Carl and Michonne talking and joking with each other, while walking on the train tracks. Then he remembered a night, sleeping under the stars with his arm over Carl and Judith. Michonne had taken his hand and rolled toward him sometime during the night, she had wrapped his hand between both of hers and tucked them up by her face in her sleep. He could feel her breath and the skin of her lips on his fingers. Were those the only times he could remember being happy? Walking, starving, and barely surviving? Maybe, he thought, as his heart started to beat slower and his palms felt less sweaty. He might allow himself to be calm for a minute. Maybe he could remember how.

Rick heard the rustle of a blanket, he knew without looking that it was Michonne. It was as though he had willed her awake with his memory. He hadn't had a chance to talk with her all day, or be alone with her. He was aching to make a connection with her but that sick feeling he had made him a little nervous, he didn't want to see a look in her eyes, the look that might push him into that horrible place, leave him wasted and broken because it mirrored his soul. He felt her walking up to stand beside him. He was calmed by her presence but kept his gaze on the window.

"Deanna hasn't given me a job yet," Michonne said in a quiet voice.


End file.
